The Finishing Mirror
by Trinity Archangel
Summary: Jill's ExoSkin is the only thing keeping her from falling apart.


Chris was loitering outside Examination Room 9 when he noticed Josh Stone dragging his battered body up the wide hallway at the BSAA infirmary. His eyes were averted, mind adrift, hand resting gingerly atop the butt of the gun in his holster. Splashes of blood still dotted his face from his earlier plight but he didn't seem the slightest bit concerned for his person. When he noticed Chris idling in the middle of the hallway, he greeted him with a mirrored salute. They broke formality and met one another with a hearty handshake.

"Agent Stone. Thanks again for the rescue."

"Josh. It's Josh," he correctly softly, squeezing Chris on the shoulder.

Chris nodded. "You ok?"

He asked because Josh was replaying the trauma in his eyes. They danced with the promise of tears, but none spilled. His rich, dark complexion drained to ash. When he landed on the helipad atop the BSAA hospital roof, he sighed in heavy relief and spilled over the controls. It was like he was holding his breath the entire time. Sheva immediately encircled him in her arms, pressing her face against his back and wept for the both of them. It was celebratory; it was thankful and heavy with grief: the success of their mission was overshadowed by great personal loss. Chris didn't care to address his feelings at the time so he willingly exited the copter with Jill at his side, ready to greet the awaiting hospital staff to leave behind the whispers of sorrow exchanged in native tongue between Sheva and Josh.

Josh scoffed at the question at hand. "Far be it from me to cry on your shoulder." It was terse, but not malicious. Chris understood completely.

"Thanks for all your help."

They took hands again, Josh forming a difficult smile. His emotions were lambasting him. "How is Ms. Valentine?"

"I was just about to check on her. Give Sheva my best."

When they parted ways, Chris rattled his knuckles gently against the exam room door, peeping in before being invited. Jill was in the furthest corner staring with contempt at the intruder, but immediately softened when she realized it was him. He slid in through the crack and quietly closed the door behind him. Jill turned away from him, her arms clasping tightly over her chest as though the ExoSkin would fall off of her and expose her vulnerability if she relented.

"Jill," he started, collapsing into the sole chair next to the examination table. The disposable paper sheet covering the faux leather table top was without crease and the flimsy yellow hospital gown remained folded flat where it was laid.

"It's over." It hardly sounded like the truth. Albert Wesker dead at long last sounded something of a fantasy. He glanced up at her, still nestled in the corner defensively cradling herself. She didn't react to what he had said, so he said it again.

"It's over."

If she batted an eyelash at his statement it would have been much.

Her indifference, brought on by a devastating bout of self-consciousness, came on the moment she caught sight of the flesh above her breasts, garbled and hypersensitive, blemishing the image she held those many years ago. The mirror to date had suddenly become her biggest adversary. Not having seen herself in three years, she was frightened of her reflection as though a stranger stood before her to mock her with unhealthy hair, blotted skin and grey lips with rivets of blood settled in the cracks. Who was this abused woman in the mirror?

"Jill—"

She turned with a start and bumped into Chris, not expecting him to be so near her. She fell against him and latched on desperately; glad for the support he offered her drained body and most of all glad for a tender human touch. His arms came up around her and held her weak frame against him as he stood dumbfounded and awkward, cradling her as she tried to hide her heavy sobs behind her hands.

"I'm afraid…" She admitted, voice nearly lost amidst the tears to a still confused Chris, ill-prepared to be forced into the role of comforter with his uncertain hand placement, fumbling words and knitted brows. He took her by the shoulders and stepped back out of her arms.

"Of what? What is it?"

Lips quivering, she turned her back to him, taking the tail of her hair in her hand and dragging it over her shoulder, revealing the zip of the ExoSkin: Her prison, her tourniquet. With a glance over her shoulder, she gave him permission to reveal her.

This task also Chris accepted reluctantly. He wiped his sweating palms against his shirt and gingerly placed his left hand atop her shoulder. It was heavy, mildly compassionate, so Jill reached up and took hold of his fingers, bringing her chin down to her chest to encourage him. Just below the knot of her cervical vertebra, was the little metal zip. He took firm grip of it and started to slide it gently down her spine, following the natural curvature of her back and stopped when the zip settled just above her bottom.

He took his hand away from her to part the material in a firm jerk, unmasking the bare skin beneath. At the grand reveal, he stood stiffly, lips parted, staring unabashed at her bare back. He was stunned. Wide eyed and suddenly desperate to see more, he peeled the ExoSkin across the width of her shoulders and rounded the front, dragging down the arms with her help until it fell forward at her waist, dipping the shed skin inverted at her navel.

She stood with her back to him, arms covering her chest to save some decency, her eyes mashed shut praying only to hear his approval and dash any over dramatized expectations she had of her body but her lone examiner was silent.

His expression would hardly have been a comfort. The suit it seemed was also her concealer. There was barely a patch of skin that wasn't discolored with the memory of assault. Blue-black stains fanned across her abdomen, yellowing at the edges. Her back was textured by bloody lesions, trailing down her spine. Prosecuting imprints of her abuser circled her arms in rich purple, pronounced and telling. Every bruise held a story of her torture, misshaping her frame with a displaced rib, a jutting collarbone or a dimple where a bone had once offered support. Beyond all that, she was sweaty and odiferous, having accumulated the natural decay of her own body inside the ExoSkin.

Finding mercy, he turned her to face him. The mirror on the wall would surely finish her.


End file.
